Thursday 27 September 2012

They May Not Mean To, But They Do

Yes, Osborne and his Conservative party strategists f*** it up.

Forgive me if all this is common knowledge but I'm away rather a lot these days.  So, I read that the LibDems are going to block the boundary changes and reduction in number of MPs; but hang on, wasn't that in the Coalition agreement ?  Oh yes, but the LibDems have decided that, having lost Lords Reform (and AV etc etc), they are free to shoot down the boundary changes.  It's all a bit theological.

So I ask Someone Who Knows about these things, and the story goes as follows:  
  • The LibDems (not Labour) have the most to lose from boundary changes and were never, ever going to support them
  • Nor will the Nats; nor (obviously) Labour
  • So they fall
  • What's more, they won't even be put to a vote to show the world what complete 4-letter men the LibDems are, because - haha! - the Nats will support it for England but defeat it in Scotland and Wales (it would be separate votes), making their over-representation even greater !
  • If the Tories takes this treachery as a pretext to scrap the coalition, under the new '5-year Parliament' rules Lab and LibDem have 14 days to come up with a new coalition, which they surely will do
In short, Boy 'Genius' Osborne and Hague and Letwin and the whole team of Tory 'negotiators' have utterly, utterly, f****d this up.

Now, to basics: back in 2010, was there a more critical issue for the Tories to nail ?  I can't think of anything: this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fix our outrageous boundary system (forget the reduction in number of MPs), a previous batch of Tories having culpably failed to do it throughout the whole of the 1979-97 period (due to outstanding Labour tactics on the Boundary Commission).

So, knowing (as they must have - mustn't they ..?) the content of bullet #1 above, didn't they realise this had to be structured into the Coalition in such a way as to be proof against LibDem backsliding ?

No ?  Then away with them.  I feel ill.

ND

14 comments:

lilith said...

My local MP has told me he doesn't think boundary changes are nearly as important as Lords reform.... David Heath. He also doesn't think Clegg is an embarrassment to the Lib Dems.

Raedwald said...

Nick - I feel the same way. The deviation from the Electoral Quotient in some UK constituencies is way beyond 3rd world standards - they truly are Rotten Boroughs. We should hang our heads in shame at leaving this unreformed.

More evidence that the whole damn caboodle of the corrupt political class puts Party before Country.

Electro-Kevin said...

Me feel ya, Nick.

But so what if the Tories won outright and the next election ?

The democratic deficit in the UK is never going be corrected and David Cameron has no intention of redressing it.

It has come to the point where our only real option is to see that the Tories are rejected so spectacularly that they split.

Even then they'll get the wrong message as to why. "Andrew Mitchell made them think we were all Tory Toffs."

The game's up. The immigration figures are truly staggering - we no longer speak with one or two voices (literally and ideologically) and it is becoming ever more difficult to find concensus in this country.

The Left are still firmly in control of the BBC SMS (Subliminal Messaging Service.)

So apathy it is and this suits the Left and the EU federalists down to the ground.

You want your revenge ?

Don't vote Tory.

And if you've got money then get it out of Britain if you can.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Gideon and Oliver Leftwing are a pair of useless Cnuts.

But then asking a man who dumps official papers in a bin in Hyde park and literally invites burglars into his house to lead a hard-nosed negotiation was never going to end happily, was it?

CityUnslicker said...

Bumble - that was Letwin's nickname from his banking days, such was his reputation of quick thinking and action.

"I agree with Nick"

there was nothing more politicially important for the Tories - they just can't win when the fight is not fair.

Maybe they will regret the failure to move to AV in the long-term.

roym said...

Funny, there wasnt nearly anough clamouring for electoral reform during last years AV vote. It wasnt the best option, but as it reduced the number of safe and ultra-safe seats, it was certainly the best chance for a generation. now with the boundary changes and the lords in the bin, we are stuck with the same, gerrymandered, self-preserving mess for decades.

and talking of non-delivery, what happened to the repeal of hundreds of criminal laws? instead we have talk of secret courts under the guidanceof the likes of andrew mitchell. faaaark that

hatfield girl said...

'In short, Boy 'Genius' Osborne and Hague and Letwin and the whole team of Tory 'negotiators' have utterly, utterly, f****d this up.'

Looking back, they had a tiny window: Brown's absolute refusal to resign the leadership of the Labour party unless he was forced from office. This was the great sticking point for a Lib-Lab coalition. A Lib-Lab coalition headed by David Miliband could reasonably have been asked to form an administration and would have received a vote of confidence in the House. Brown wouldn't give up and the Liberal faction of the Lib Dems wouldn't accept any assurance of his doing so 'after six months' as he promised.

The Boy Genius leveraged this last piece of appalling political hubris into a Conservative administration.

Remember, Brown, wholly improperly, refused to physically leave Downing Street for days. And while a Lib-Lab coalition would have needed the Irish support too, they had already been squared with billions by Brown.

Osborne 'read' Brown and his personal inability not to wreck the provisionally-arranged coalition of the centre, very centre, left. And for this he deserves some credit.

And now centre left inclined voters are STILL stuck with an elitist, statist, excluding party following utterly flawed economic analyses.

andrew said...

No - we have it all wrong.

This person did graduate from Oxford after all and so must be one of the brightest.

He has now established a reputation for being completely useless and so that is what we all expect.

When the Scot Nats have finished negotiating with him, Salmon (who has a rep for being canny) may well have a referendum choice structured on the lines of
- independance
- having your left foot cut off

The gifted Gerge will then run the No campaign and as may be expected, lose.

Having voted for independance, and answering the West Lothian question, England pretty much becomes a one-party (Tory) state - no need for a boundary comission.

Cunnng or Wot!

roym said...

@Hatfield Girl

But Lib-Lab plus all the odds and sods still didnt add up. speaking of minority govt, why didnt the tories try and go for it themselves. perhaps im missing the point.

I still fail to see how Brown nixed it for Osborne. Maybe the tories should have played AV in good faith, to be repaid with boundary changes.

Re the interim period, is there a precedent for leaving Downing st empty? Speaking of which, that youtube clip of Alistair Campbell and fatso Adam Boulton still cracks me up!

Anonymous said...

we need a new party

Anonymous said...

There was no real reason for Brown to leave no 10, as there was nothing at the time to replace him with. "I hate Gordon Brown and everything he's ever done" is a reasonable stance, but it should be possible to find something more substantial that he's done, that's even more worthy of mention.

Nick Drew said...

Lil, I googled yer man Heath & he looks like a piece of work: bad choice!

Radders - good to see you: it certainly reveals the LibDems for what we always knew

EK - well thanks for the feeling ... David Cameron has no intention of redressing it is a bit of a leap, isn't it ?

SW, CU, indeed, and the moron keeps sticking his fat fingers into Energy (he believes himself to be the nonpareil of energy policy after having single-handedly privatised the CEGB)

roym, yes, no much sign of strategic thinking in evidence

HG: you are a subtle constitutionalist, but A Lib-Lab coalition ... would have received a vote of confidence in the House - really ? I think I am with roym (his 1st sentence @5:46)

maybe some credit to Osborne et al but the facts remain: boundary changes actually delivered were the sine qua non; to link these to reduced overall numbers was to confuse a clear-cut necessity with a gimmick; when you are sent in to kill a rabid dog, you don't come back saying "I took a shot & I think I may have hit it"

Andrew - nice theory !

Tom - not really with you there ... quite a few reasons, I'd say

Anonymous said...

The post is predicated on the idea that David Cameron wants the Tories in power.

This is not the case.
The Tories should have split years ago, you had the patriotic real traditional Conservatives, and the Tory wets who are more intune with the LibDems with their gay marriage etc than Conservative grassroots.

David Cameron, is part of that group of LibDems who have taken over the Conservative party.
He does not want Real Conservatives to win power.

Blue Eyes said...

The lack of implementing the boundary changes is of course a shocker both in terms of the LDs reneging on a clear agreement and in terms of poor strategy from OzCam.

I wonder if there might be a small positive to be seen though. If we get another hung parliament next time, let's say a similar composition to the current one, the LDs will surely know that they won't get such an easy ride during the negotiations again.